


The Irony of Second Chances

by MaryWisdom



Series: The Irony of Second Chances [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Earth-2, Episode Fix-it: s01e15 Destiny, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Science Fiction, Snart has a plan, The Flash AU post season 2, Time Loop gone wrong, some one-sided Captain Canary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-09-26 17:30:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9913256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryWisdom/pseuds/MaryWisdom
Summary: "Son of a bitch never did anything without a plan."In 2013, Mick Rory told Leonard Snart that he was his hero. Now in 2016 they find themselves aboard a time ship and Leonard knows that something bad is going to happen. When the signs get harder and harder to ignore and he cannot turn to his team for help, he races against time to find a way to save himself. But even the best laid plans of AIs and men often go awry, and Leonard might be left with more problems than before.





	1. I can't undo what has been done

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this story back in May, not a week after Destiny originally aired, and it evolved on me. So far, it is still possibly in canon on Legends of Tomorrow, but not anymore on The Flash. Thanks go to my wonderful bff miragedominator on tumblr, who patiently read through all my crazy plot ideas on WhatsApp and always encouraged me <3
> 
> This is hopefully going to be Part 1 of a longer series.
> 
> The Captain Canary is minor and not really the focus of the story.
> 
> Chapter title from Heroes by Mans Zelmerlöw.

Truth be told, Leonard had not actually realized the significance of that strange conversation in 2013 until he learned Mick was Chronos. Yes, he had had a nagging feeling at the back of his head ever since they had boarded the damn time ship. But the mere idea of a Mick Rory coming from the future, calling him a _hero_ , just seemed too ridiculous to be true. No, Leonard Snart was not a hero and never would be - he was so confident in that fact that he thought it was enough to prevent whatever had apparently happened to that future Leonard. 

But then he had frozen his own hand off to prevent his friends from killing each other, and the alarm bells ringing in his head had become deafening. Could it be he actually had it in him? He knew the Flash had made him up his game, but was he also correct about there being that much good in him..?

And then there was that other matter. It gave Leonard more chills than the hero-thing, mostly because there already had been lasting consequences.

Looks like one of us lost track of time.

Mick had made it sound so terrible, as if he had left him behind on purpose. But Leonard was always going to come back for his friend, nothing would have changed that. Unless of course if Leonard died before he got the chance. 

He had talked to Sara about this during one of their sleepless nights of silly parlor games and raiding Rip's supplies in the mess, and she had done her best to dissipate his fears by explaining it as a time travel paradox. But even though he had agreed with her, he had spent the later part of that night thinking it over and over in his head. In that moment it seemed even less likely than before that Mick would call him a hero or even be sad if he died, but who still knew what to expect on their adventures?

That idea was only confirmed when Mick came back to their side after their fistfight in the future. And with his face bruised and aching, Leonard wondered how long he could still ignore his suspicions before they came to bite him in the ass. How much could it hurt to be prepared? He knew he needed a plan if something was going to happen.

Rubbing his battered knuckles, he vaguely remembered something he had read when he had decided to go through any interesting time travel material Gideon could offer (because of course he was both curious and paranoid, and who could blame him? Rip was usually only forthcoming with information when shit had already hit the fan). And since he had not had any luck with straight up changing his story back in 1975, he would have to get a little bit more creative to survive.

"Gideon. Tell me more about time loops."

***

Time loops, as it turned out, were actually quite a rare thing. Time Masters in general tended to avoid them because it was too easy to mess up and cause a paradox or an unwanted alteration to the timeline. Stable time loops were usually created by accident and even then the Time Council got, according to Gideon, incredibly irritated by them and was completely baffled by their existence.

Leonard figured he needed to create a stable time loop on purpose if he wanted to survive, without any way of knowing what death he was preparing to avoid and if it could even be avoided. But no pressure, right? 

Though, at this point it was either that or die, because if Mick learned that he knew, or if Leonard avoided his fate - whatever it was - in any way that would keep his friend from going back to have that conversation, it would most likely cause a time paradox, and if Rip and Gideon were to be believed, those were end-of-the-world bad. Basically, Leonard was walking a tightrope blindly - if he put one foot wrong he would die, but if he chose not to walk he would also die. Also the rope was on fire and could tear apart any moment. But he would not be Leonard Snart if he did not at least try.

***

So much could go wrong during their crazy adventures that the more Leonard thought about it the more surprised he was that they had made it this far with only one casualty. After the duel in Salvation, Stein took him aside. 

"Is there a problem, Professor?" Leonard asked warily.

Stein licked his lips, not quite sure how to start. "Mr. Snart, see, there is a distinct difference in the chemical compounds making up gun powder versus those used to make blanks. And when fired..." -Stein underlined his words with elaborate gestures - "...the blanks create a brighter flash than real bullets."

Leonard watched him calmly. "So?"

Stein returned his look expectantly. "You were the last person to have the revolver Mr. Stillwater used when dueling Captain Hunter." He smiled knowingly, but pushed on, "Is there nothing you have to say about that?"

Leonard shrugged. "Rip is a better shot than your average Wild West gangster - what more is there to say?" And with that he walked away. 

Of course Stein was right about what Leonard had done. Like hell was he going to let Rip get himself shot! Stuff like that was what could lead to other crew members getting killed too, and Leonard was definitely trying to avoid exactly that.

He wished he could tell Stein though and ask him for ideas. But the nature of time loops forbade anyone else from finding out, and none of his teammates was naive enough to not get suspicious if Leonard started asking questions like that, not even Ray. He was on his own.

***

His anxiety grew as he watched Mick change after they got him back and the two of them had mostly settled their differences. Before, he had held onto the firm belief that his Mick Rory would never say the things the one in 2013 had said - he would be angry with him and call him a dumb idiot for getting himself killed and then be done with it. This Mick though, the one who gave his younger self a pep talk about not being to blame for the death of his parents, yes, this was the man who had called him his hero. 

The hope that he was wrong about everything, that he was just being too paranoid for his own good, faded with each day, and in the end the bad feeling was a constant ache in his chest. The last time he slept well had literally been in the 80s. He spent more and more time alone reading up on time loops and paradoxes and seriously obscure time travel theories from the 22nd century. Gideon must have taken quite the liking to him during those long nights because she started bringing up gentle reminders every now and then that food was waiting in the mess, or that she could provide a sedative if he really could not sleep at all (Leonard never was one for drugs, but he found it weirdly comforting that the AI cared.)

At one point Rip walked up to him and asked if he maybe wanted some more interesting reading material. "I have a number of novels from throughout history in the study," he said. "You can borrow any of them, just be careful with the first editions."

Leonard gave him a look like sour grapes. "Thanks, Rip. I'll keep your priceless first editions in mind."

Rip paled a little at that, no doubt now expecting that Leonard was going to sell his library first chance he got (tempting idea for sure), but before he could say something, Stein called him away for a science matter.

Leonard left them alone and went back to his quarters. "Stop telling on me, Gideon!" he hissed when the door had closed behind him.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Snart, but I was programmed to only obey the Captain's orders."

He made a vague gesture with his hand and raised his eyebrows at that. "Well, then you're lucky because I am a Captain!"

"We've been over this: Captain Hunter explicitly ordered me to disregard your made-up rank, Mr. Snart."

Leonard rolled his eyes. Sometimes she just wanted to be difficult. "How about I make you a deal: you don't tell Rip what I read, and I promise to keep Mick away from the stove, hm?"

Gideon did not reply immediately and if she was not a highly advanced computer program, Leonard would have said she was contemplating his offer. "Please?" he added as a, truthfully not quite serious, afterthought.

"I cannot lie if he asks directly," Gideon said, making Leonard smile. This was good enough.

"Thanks, Gideon. I owe you," he said and opened up his research files again, well aware how strange it was to tell that to an AI. But he got the nagging suspicion that deep down she was incredibly human.

"Just keep Mr. Rory from setting fire to the ship, Mr. Snart!"

***

It got worse. They had Savage in their custody, their mission almost complete, and instead of dissipating like the unfounded fear he still hoped it to be, his bad feeling got worse. Mick was raiding the kitchen and Leonard could not eat; much as he tried, he could not muster up an appetite with all the things that were on his mind. 

Trying to figure out what to do, he toyed with the ring on his finger. It had been weeks, but sometimes his right hand still felt cold, like it was not really his, like it was not really there. Gideon insisted it was fine physically, and Leonard could not even argue when she cited stress as a possible source for his dysphoria. 

Then one day, Mick had seen him rub his wrist and massage his palm, and of course he had figured it out. Mick knew him too well. It had been shortly after leaving the refuge and they had only just started really talking again. The next time it happened Mick had sat the ring down on the table in front of him with a short, awkward, "Try this!"

Leonard had held the ring up with his thumb and index finger and had smiled a little surprised. "Didn't think you'd bring it with you on a job like this, Mick," he had said.

Mick had shrugged. "I figured you'd have stolen it back by now."

_He remembered their game_. Parts of his memory were still scrambled and in pieces, but he remembered their game. Leonard had needed the moment of happiness and relief this revelation brought. 

"That only works when I know you have it," he had replied and quickly put the ring on his pinky finger, and sure enough it helped and grounded his hand in reality. At the corner of his eyes Mick had smiled.

That damn pinky ring from that dumb job that he had planned so much for and they had been lucky to get anything out of at all. It reminded him how his plans were never 100% guaranteed to succeed, and he did not even have much of a plan yet. If the universe was trying to give him a sign, it was not a good one.

Leonard's thoughts jumped to Alexa... He had pulled them both out before something worse happened. Maybe he could do it again? Maybe the damage of the paradox would not be so bad? 

So he tried to run, and he tried to take Mick with him. It was all going to work out, he told himself. Rip did not care about them anyway, why should the universe care about a stupid little paradox? And they almost made it. They were seconds too late, Leonard realized, _seconds_!  But how could he blame Stein for using the jump ship to save Jax? Stein had no idea what he might have just done. In that moment, staring at an empty hangar, Stein explaining the why behind his actions, Leonard knew deep down his world had just shrunken to two options: do or die.

***

He wanted to just throw it all in the wind and scream when Rip told them the Time Masters had been controlling their every move. What good had it all been if there was no way out? If everything had been predetermined from the start, did he ever even stand a chance?

Meanwhile Ray thought that he would be the one to die (which did not seem likely with the entire 2013-conversation in mind) and was mopey enough about it that Mick had gone to talk him out of his bad mood. Leonard wanted to hit them both. But he could not; he could not let anyone know.

He was basically screaming inside when he found Sara in her quarters, thinking he would give seducing her a try, because if he was dying he might as well. She was the best friend he had made in ages, and she intrigued him on a deep level. If he was being honest it definitely counted as having feelings for her. He would seriously hate to die without ever even having kissed her. Before he could stop himself to think what he was doing, he was talking about a future for them he knew they could never have, because he did not have any future at all. None of it was fair to Sara, and when she turned him down a part of him was glad. Especially since he had needed that metaphorical bucket of cold water to make him remember that he did not give a shit about destiny.

When he was back in his room, Leonard let out a shaky breath. That nagging bad feeling was worse than ever before since they had returned from the Vanishing Point. If his damned gut instinct was to be trusted, whatever was going to happen to him was going to happen soon. If he only knew what exactly he was preparing for! He had been wearing body armor under his clothes since Salvation. Inside the pockets of his jacket were as many pieces of survival gear he could fit, including a small futuristic gas mask that could double as an underwater breathing apparatus, several of the Waverider's bland-tasting rations, and several rolls of sterile bandages. 

Still, he somehow knew this would not be enough. 

"Gideon, tell me what you know about the Oculus," Leonard addressed the AI. Just like a job. Scout the location. Learn as much about the security system and the target as you can.

"I was able to hack into the Time Masters' main database and download the relevant information while you were rescuing your team mates, Mr. Snart," Gideon announced cheerfully. 

"Good thing you're as much of a rebel as Rip," Leonard mumbled with a tense smile. He pulled up all the data she could give him on the monitor by his bed, working through as much as he could, asking Gideon for clarification where needed. 

"Dr. Palmer has read through the same information you have," the AI said at one point. "He has concluded that successfully destroying the Oculus means blowing it up."

Leonard tensed at that. It would make sense, wouldn't it? So much could go wrong with explosions. He had never been a fan of them.

He turned back to older files he had read, comparing them to what was known about the Oculus, trying to find something that could save him from blowing up or whatever else could be waiting for him. Leonard went back and forth several times, and his frustration grew with each file he closed because it was of no use. He was running out of time. He could already feel the seconds slip through his fingers. 

"Help me out here, Gideon!" His voice was sharp as he pulled up the folder filled with the truly obscure theories in his desperation.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Snart," Gideon replied regretfully, "but none of these seem to be linked to the Oculus."

"Damnit!" His frustration got the better of him and he punched the wall panel next to the monitor. The screen flickered, and for a moment he was afraid he had broken part of the damn time s---

Leonard's eyes grew wide.

Time ship... 

He was thinking too complicated. He did not need a way to block the explosion - he just needed one to get away from it. But despite extensive research, actual teleportation was not a thing possible yet, not even in the future, and especially not without heavy equipment. However, if you added time to the equation, there was one angle Leonard had not looked at yet.

"Gideon, I need the ship's manual, the part about the time drive!"

Gideon obediently opened the requested file and began summing up parts of it: “While the ship’s flight engine is mainly powered by solar energy stored in its power cells, the time drive is, as the name implies, essential to its time travelling ability. The ship can fly without a time drive; it cannot make time jumps.”

“How’s it powered?”

“A time drive is powered by the temporal energy within the time stream.”

“Pull up the schematics of the jump ship,” he said, mind racing. Gideon complied. Leonard put both plans, that of the jump ship, and that of the Waverider’s time drive next to each other and compared. The jump ship’s drive was definitely smaller than the Waverider’s. He pointed it out to Gideon and then asked, “How big is the smallest a time drive can be?”

Gideon rescaled a couple of the parts and compressed them together. The model she came up with was still the size of a very large backpack. _Too clumsy_. _Too obvious_.

But Leonard did not want to give up just yet. He pointed at a rather large component of which the Waverider had several and the jump ship only one. “Are those batteries?”

“Crudely put, yes, Mr. Snart. These batteries store the temporal energy for when the ship has to reenter the time stream. They are charged while the ship is traveling through the temporal zone.”

“Is it possible to build a time drive without a battery?” It was the largest component – if he could cut it and power the thing from an outside source, then maybe…

“No, Mr. Snart. Without a battery the temporal energy would have to be harvested directly from the time stream at the moment of use. That is not only dangerous, but also impossible to do without a time ship to get close enough.”

Her factual voice did nothing to calm his suddenly racing heart. He was onto something here, he knew it. Tapping his fingers in high concentration, he looked back at the data on the Oculus. Apparently the time stream sprung from where the part of the Oculus they were going to destroy was, which brought him an idea that he immediately needed Gideon to confirm.

"Is temporal energy gonna be released when we blow up the Oculus?"

"Yes, but--"

"Could it be harvested to power a small auxiliary time drive?"

"Yes, it could, if the right materials are used as conductors. But whoever was using the device would have to stand dangerously close to the explosion. The risk of the blast killing them before the time drive could activate is---"

"I really don’t need your safety talk right now, Gideon! Do we have the parts to build one on the ship?" Leonard interrupted her again, more desperate than impatient.

Gideon hesitated. "Some are in Dr. Palmer's toolbox in the loading bay. I can generate the rest. They will be ready in the fabrication room in three minutes." 

Leonard let go of the breath he had been holding and it felt like a part of the weight he had been carrying had been lifted. "Thank you Gideon!"

***

It was a shitty plan if there ever was one, but it was a plan. And probably the best he could have come up with, which said a lot about how screwed up his situation was. Returning to the last point in the timeline he was supposed to be in, namely Central City in late January 2016, did sound like a nice enough outcome though. Rip had wanted to return them to that time anyway. 

Now Leonard only had to avoid blowing himself up in the process of course.

The lock on Ray's toolbox was no problem. He carefully picked through the pieces, looking for the ones on the list Gideon had given him. 

"You know, you could just ask if you need something." How Ray of all people had snuck up on him was a mystery, but if there was one person it was impossible to be afraid of it was this overgrown puppy posing as a scientist.

Leonard sighed dramatically without turning around. "Consider this me asking." He held up a small roll of wire to see if it was the kind he needed. "Did you want something?" he asked Ray, who had not gone away yet.

"Uh, yeah," Ray picked up a weird looking screwdriver and held it out for Leonard to see, but still showed no intention to leave. After a moment of hesitation, he asked, "What are you looking for?"

"Spare parts – something in the cold gun broke," Leonard lied calmly, but gathered the pieces he needed in the palm of his hand as fast he could without raising suspicions.

"Oh," Ray said. "Do you want me to take a look?"

Leonard finally turned around and shot him a glare. "Hands off my gun, Raymond." Ray's smile faltered and he looked like he had dropped his ice cream cone. Leonard should have ignored him and the small voice in his own head pointing out this might as well be the last time they spoke to each other. So what!, he wanted to tell it. But maybe he had gone softer than he thought, and that was why he added in a more placating tone, "Look, I know what I'm doing. I've got the parts now, and that should fix it. Relax."

Ray's smile returned and he nodded, probably finally remembering that Leonard knew the cold gun inside and out. "Sure. You got this!"

Leonard still wanted to punch him, even though Ray was making it very hard.

***

"I would like to inform you that I do not condone your plan, Mr. Snart," Gideon announced as soon as Leonard was back in his quarters after picking up the parts she had generated in the fabrication room. "You are aware this device has never been properly tested?"

"Oh, boohoo," he said, rolling his eyes, "what am I going to do now, Gideon?"

"You get to work, Mr. Snart," the AI replied. "You do not have a better plan, or much time before the team leaves for the mission."

Leonard would have smirked had the situation not been as serious. He was actually glad the two of them had finally stopped pretending Gideon did not know what his research and behavior these past two months had been about. He pulled up her proposed plans for the miniature time drive and started assembling it. 

If he was being honest he had no idea what half the parts were supposed to be doing, but like with the cold gun he was able to figure out how it all best went together correctly. He worked in silence, fusing parts and connecting multicolored wires to tiny microchips, screwing together components he did not even know a name for. Gideon just as silently added specifications to the plans where required. 

Finally, he held up the finished device: it was rectangular, only about the size of a deck of cards. The front cover was made of one of the more obscure materials Gideon had provided; it was directly connected to the interior and would – hopefully – work as conductor to harvest the energy from the explosion; if Gideon was correct, the fabric of a shirt covering it should not affect that ability. The back cover had a black rubber coating to somewhat protect against electric shocks. Leonard had attached a nut to one of the short ends, through which he threaded a leather band.

"Congratulations, Mr. Snart," Gideon chirped up, "You have successfully assembled the smallest time drive in existence. My calculations show that it might even work as it's supposed to."

Leonard stared at the little flat box in his hand, jaw tight. Strange to think this inconspicuous device could be the only thing standing between him and certain death. 

"Don't tell them, Gideon," he said calmly.

"Why not, Mr. Snart? Once the time loop is complete there is no reason to keep it secret from them."

"If it works you won't need to tell them," Leonard said, tying the ends of the leather band together, making a necklace. "And if it doesn't they don't need to know."

***

They had gathered in the loading bay in preparation for a quick touchdown at the Vanishing Point. Gideon was flying the Waverider on autopilot and was going to give them just enough time to get off. Leonard's bad feeling had gotten to the point where there was absolutely no way of denying shit was about to go down. Around him Sara was playing with a knife, Mick was fiddling with his gun, Stein was rubbing the bridge of his nose, looking like he should be anywhere else but going out there, and Ray was making a joke that Leonard did not pay attention to, but still rolled his eyes at.

He glanced at Mick next to him; every part of his friend was ready to stick it to the Time Masters, and who could blame him? A thought suddenly shot through his mind. This is it - this is your last chance! Would they have enough time to say goodbye later? There was no guarantee they would see each other again - well, Mick would get the chance to speak his mind, in 2013, but this could very much be it for Leonard. Without anyone seeing, he slipped off first his right glove and then the ring, and then casually placed it in the pocket of Mick's jacket. Mick did not notice, and Leonard put his glove back on as if nothing had happened. If he made it, he could always steal the ring back.

"Wish us luck, Gideon!" Rip said as he opened the cargo door and lowered the ramp.

One by one they left the Waverider on what was the most important mission of their journey. Leonard came last, the little box of hard metal pressing ominously against his chest where he wore it around his neck under his shirt. Just as he exited the ship, Gideon spoke up to reply. "Good luck... Captain." 

Leonard tensed. He glanced over his shoulder back into the ship, knowing she was watching through the surveillance system. Then he whispered a quick, "Take care, Gideon," before speeding up his pace just enough to catch up to his friends.

***

Of course the mission went south almost immediately and exactly nobody was surprised. The Time Masters showed up and Leonard was on the part of the team that held them back, while Rip, Mick and Ray went to blow up the Oculus. Jax had also shown up, looking his regular age and well, and Leonard felt a little more positive just knowing that the kid was okay. Blasts firing left and right let him forget for a couple of precious seconds that something was going to happen. It was just like any other day, facing mortal dangers together with his friends, trusting that they would come out on top because if you did not trust in that you had already lost. A short breath of air in which Leonard felt like he actually stood a chance and could avoid "dying". 

And then the moment had passed and Rip came storming out to join them, alone, with a shrunken, knocked out Ray in his pocket. 

"...and Mick has elected to stay."

Half a sentence made all the pieces finally click together. Leonard suddenly saw the whole picture and he knew this was it. He knew what he had to do, even though he felt his heart sink. 

It could not be Mick or even Ray in the explosion, it had to be him. He had run it by Gideon at least a dozen times: if he wanted this time loop to work, it had to look as if he died, otherwise Mick would not go back to 2013 to tell him he was his hero, therefore never tipping him off. Leonard was Doc Brown who was about to be gunned down by terrorists; he needed to make sure Mick became his Marty McFly and warned him to put on a bulletproof vest. Granted, his vest was a piece of technology that he had no idea would work and that he did not 100% understand, but he trusted Gideon on that because what other choice did he have? His chances of survival were still less than ideal, but if the other option was certain death, as little as one percent could seem like a lot (which was exactly how high Gideon rated the chance of a successful outcome.)

And so he decked his best friend and held the damn thing down himself. Sara did not protest. In a way she understood. The kiss was unexpected, not entirely unwelcome, but also not how Leonard had imagined it. He watched her drag Mick out, his cold gun under her arm, knowing he was entirely too calm in the face of what was going down.

He knew in his heart he would have taken Mick's place just to save his partner, just to make sure none of his friends had to die. He would have died a thousand times for Mick. There was no denying it, was there? Leonard Snart was a hero. But he was also a survivor, and ever since he was a small boy he had known that he always had to look out for himself.

Leonard's destiny had been determined ever since that fateful night in 2013. This was the moment he cut his own strings.

He could tell when the explosion was coming because a split second before it hit, the miniature time drive became scolding hot. Leonard had no chance to react to the burning pain. There was a flash of bright blue light. Then the pain was everywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think! The next chapter should be up soon - all six are finished, but need to be edited. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	2. I had a dream that all of time was running dry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Oculus has been destroyed and Leonard wakes up back in Central City, just like he planned. Except... it's not the Central City he left. Not by a long shot.

The moments leading up to and immediately after the explosion were not the worst. It was not even later, when everybody was slowly realizing that Leonard Snart was truly gone, and that he had actually sacrificed himself for them, dying a hero’s death.

No.

The worst moment of it all was when Mick Rory woke up in the loading bay a split second after the explosion. Nobody on board would ever forget his screams. Gideon noted he dented the cargo hatch in two places as he shouted at her to open it. But she could not. Eventually he turned his wrath and shouting on Sara, who did not have any of it and told him that Snart made his choice. Gideon found her crying later; Mick broke down against the cargo hatch and turned almost catatonic for a while, before Rip came down and he left to avoid the Captain.

Gideon did not know whether Leonard Snart’s unwise plan had worked. The destruction of the Oculus had left her without a way to check on the current effects on the time stream. She wished there was something she could do, something she could tell the team to give them hope. Perhaps he was out there. Perhaps he had made it.

But Gideon had been programed to always obey the captain’s orders, and Captain Cold had ordered her not to tell on him.

* * *

 

All those stories about how you saw your life flashing before your eyes in your final moments were a lie because not even when you were prepared to die were you actually expecting it when it happened, and so the shock was far too overwhelming to think anything except " _What the fuck is happening?!"_ And once you got past that you were probably already dead.

And that should have been his first clue because Leonard did see flashes of the people he left behind, unconnected, confusing glimpses of moments with them that had been, that could have been, and that could still be.

Thinking back Leonard was quite sure there had been a distinct thud at some point, an impact against a hard surface, and he probably had bit his lip because he tasted blood, but in the end he had to admit he did not really have an idea how he had ended up where he was. He was lying on his back, on what roughly felt like wet asphalt. Above him was bright blue sky, framed by what looked like the walls of skyscrapers. One thing was instantly clear though: this was not the Vanishing Point.

Leonard tried to sit up - big mistake because his body ached all over as if he had been hit by a truck. He groaned, but it turned into a low laugh once the realization had sunk in that he was also not dead - there was no way afterlife hurt this bad.

_He made it. He was alive._

The second attempt to move eventually brought him into a semi upright position, and once his stomach had stopped churning, things did not look so bad at all. The overall ache and the nausea felt like normal time travel side effects, just a bit amplified. Leonard could almost hear Rip say, "This should fade momentarily."

So he waited, leaning back against the brick wall of the building adjourning the narrow alley he found himself in. He felt something wet on his cheek and wiped at it to see if it was blood, but sure enough it were just tears of relief. _He was alive! He was alive and he was not even bleeding from the eyeballs!_ An astounding success, even though he realized his wrists seemed a bit sunburned. At least his skin did not look a day older than 43, so he had also avoided Jax's almost-fate. His left wrist was a little redder than his right, and he even found a sizable beginning blister on its palm when he took off his glove; at least this time he had been smarter and had not endangered his dominant hand.

Not ready yet to get to his feet, Leonard looked around. The alleyway he was sitting in seemed pretty generic - it could be in any city, probably in any part of the world. There was an overflowing industrial dumpster, a simple green backdoor to whatever establishment occupied the building, and from around the corner Leonard could hear the traffic noise of a city. Apparently he was not stuck in the distant past either - another success. Then again, the air was decidedly too warm for January (if he was indeed in Central City as intended), so he probably was not quite where and when Gideon had said she would send him.

But to find out the exact place and time he had ended up in he had to get up, but Leonard regretted it immediately when the nausea flared up again and he had to steady himself against the dumpster. Not his best idea because the stench made his eyes water, but he somehow managed to keep his lunch down, and inside the dumpster he spotted a discarded newspaper. It was a Central City Tribune no less, and through the dirt Leonard could make out the date:

_**May 12 2016** _

Almost four months after they had left. If Rip had made good on his promise and returned them to January, his friends were already back (provided they had finished their mission and defeated Savage without him). Mick had probably already delivered his message to 2013-Leonard and the time loop was complete.

Oh, how Leonard would love to see Rip's face when he found out. He wondered if it would be as good as Druce's in the end. Again he giggled at the fact that he was alive. Euphoria was one powerful drug.

Finally steady enough to stay upright, Leonard slowly walked to where the alleyway exited into the broader street. The sun was bright and he instinctively reached for the goggles still wrapped around his neck, but let go when he saw the glass on both sides was covered in webs of breaks.

"Interesting," Leonard mumbled with a frown. His voice was hoarse and his throat dry.

Squinting against the sun, he looked out at the street. He recognized it instantly - it was just two blocks down from his and Lisa's old school - but at the same time something was... off. At first Leonard could not quite put a finger on it, but then he began to notice it more and more. It were little things at first: the streetlights seemed to be farther apart than they used to be a few months ago; the uniforms of the Big Belly Burger staff in the restaurant across the street was an inverted color scheme; and he was sure the trees in the little park half a block down had always been oaks and not willows. Then he looked at the skyline - where the fuck had that monorail come from?!?

Leonard sank back against the brick wall, an overwhelming feeling of cold panic rising in his chest. What had he done? Had the timeline been altered by his attempt to create a time loop? What else had changed?!

The longer he stared at the street the stranger it started to look. The brick was the wrong shade of red; the grass was too green for this time of year; the guy selling ice cream on the corner had been their state senator when Leonard had left.

Maybe the changes aren't so severe? he tried to convince himself, unsuccessfully. All the cars in the street looked like they had come straight from 1958.

How badly was time messed up? Mick, Lisa, Barry, Sara - did they even still exist?

***

The lot Leonard's apartment building had been on was a shopping mall and had been for the past five years, according to the plaque above the entrance. At this point his brain was only half functioning, the rest was in a petrified state of shock and was working on instinct. He had stolen the wallet of the first person he had come across - whoever Timothy Drake was, he looked like he could spare a couple dollars anyway (not that Leonard gave a shit). Maybe if he felt like it; Leonard would even drop his driver’s license off at the police station later. For now, he needed sunglasses and a baseball cap, because there might still be a warrant out for him and it was the easiest disguise he could think of. He had to do a double take when he passed a mirror - apparently the sunburn was not restricted to his hands, but most of his face was also reddish and a little sore.

There was Flash-merchandise in the cheap little tourist shop he chose, so at least the Scarlet Speedster was still a thing. Leonard pointedly avoided getting the bright red baseball cap with the yellow lightning bolt and just eyed it for a long second. Despite the chaos that was his life, he still had a reputation to maintain.

He frowned at the occasional dark blue in the Flash-t-shirts. Had Barry changed his color scheme in this timeline, or was it just a marketing thing? But only a few minutes of aimlessly wandering through familiar, yet totally foreign streets he saw where it came from. The man on the newspaper looked nothing like his Flash, save for the obsession with the color red and lightning bolts. Whoever he was, he was certainly not Barry. Leonard's heart sank even more, though at the same time he wondered if he was really to blame for all this. For all he knew the team had gone and messed up after he had "died".

***

A nicked cellphone and a quick call to the CCPD main desk asking for Barry Allen later, Leonard was quite sure that whatever part of the space time continuum had broken it was not his fault - nothing he had done could have fucked up time badly enough to create an entire new continent called Atlantis.

Neither Mick, nor Lisa had answered their phone when he had called them, and Leonard was scared. He did not have a way to contact Sara. But at least now he knew Barry was still alive and was even still a CSI. Not that that was a lot, but it gave Leonard some hope that maybe, somehow, he could fix this mess. But he would need help, first to figure out what even had gone wrong, and then how to make things right again. Sure, he knew his way around electronics and engineering enough to understand the Cold Gun, but when he did not have a Gideon with him, time travel physics was best left to people specializing in it. What Leonard needed was S.T.A.R. Labs, and as luck would have it for once, it was still in the same place it had always been.

Unlike "his" S.T.A.R. Labs, however, this one was bustling with people, scientists and tourists, and while that would make it easier to get inside, getting to Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow would probably be more difficult. He decided to wait until nightfall, then break in and find out where he was at.

***

The S.T.A.R. Labs security system was still a joke. Someone should probably tell them, once things were back to normal. The floor plan seemed to still be exactly the same, but the decoration and purpose of the rooms sometimes was vastly different. There was a gift shop in the lobby - Leonard had to shake his head at that because "his" S.T.A.R. Labs still got vandalized at least once a month. Too many people had been hurt in the particle accelerator explosion. But people worked _here_. People learned here, came here out of fascination, not for the morbid, but for knowledge and science. Children probably came here on school trips and were inspired to one day pursue careers in STEM fields as well.

Leonard wandered around the dark building, using the moonlight that fell through the windows and the small flashlight on the stolen phone to find his way. What on earth had to go wrong with a timeline that computer screens were suddenly vertical instead of horizontal? Deeper and deeper he ventured into the building, but there still was no sign of a Caitlin Snow or a Cisco Ramon. So far the only name he had recognized on the door signs was Harrison Wells, and for several reasons this was not encouraging - not only had the guy turned out to be that villainous, untrustworthy yellow speedster, but last he checked he was supposed to be dead.

_Look who's talking!_ , Leonard thought to himself and casually hot-wired the door normally leading to Team Flash's central base of operations. The sign warning of danger and restricting access to the area under all circumstances probably should not have encouraged him as much as it did.

The inside of the lab was surprisingly cool, the AC on full blast despite it being late at night and nobody working here. He did not bother turn on the light; screens around the room gave off enough to see everything. To make things even stranger, a lot of the room seemed to be mainly used for storage, as plastic and cardboard boxes were stacked on industrial shelves in neat rows. But there were traces of life in the lab too: a jacket hung over the back of a couch; an empty coffee mug on the desk; a pizza box on top of the trash can. And in the parted off med bay, an occupied hospital bed.

On the few occasions he had been in S.T.A.R. Labs, Leonard had not paid much attention to whether or not their medical wing could be locked, so the fact that it doubled as a glass prison cell now startled him briefly. What came as a much bigger shock was the woman lying curled up on the bed, her blanket discarded somewhere across the room. She was dressed in gray sweats and a dark T-shirt that had slipped up just far enough to reveal thick bandages covering her torso. And except for the platinum blond hair, she looked exactly like Caitlin Snow.

Leonard stepped closer to get a better look and ran his fingers across the glass; it was cold. He looked around the room for some clue what was going on because right now nothing was making any sense.

What had happened to Caitlin? Why had they locked her up? For whose safety was she in that isolated room?

He spotted a clipboard with what looked like medical records on the desk closest and decided to take a peek, when suddenly he realized he was being watched. Caitlin's eyes were pale blue, also a new development. There was no way he could hide, and so he held her gaze as she sat up and stretched. Was there... _ice_ on her bandages?! She smiled like she knew exactly what he had looked at.

"Back so soon, Mr. High and Mighty?" she asked tauntingly. "And so late at night - people will get the wrong idea if we start seeing each other like this now."

_Back?_ Leonard's surprise must have shown because the woman, whose voice would have sounded exactly like Caitlin's if not for her intonation being all off, frowned and looked him up and down. Suddenly her eyes widened in realization. She cocked her head and smiled at him with the same curiosity a snake had for the mouse it was about to eat. "Well, look at you - seems like we got ourselves another breacher!"

Leonard had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but before he had a chance to say something, he heard movement behind him. He spun around, ready to block an attack or throw a punch himself.

The man before him was dressed in sweatpants and a loose black STAR Labs t-shirt; he blinked and raised his own hand to shield himself from the flashlight coming from the phone Leonard was still holding. He seemed vaguely familiar but Leonard could not place where he knew him from.  His opponent’s eyes finally focused on his face and then his raised fist. He blinked and Leonard saw him shift from a confused defense to an offensive stance. “You’re not Leo,” the man said in utter bewilderment.

“Not since fourth grade,” Leonard replied and decided whoever this guy was, some drastically underdressed night guard or whatever, he would rather he was out cold on the floor while he questioned Caitlin.

Leonard ended what his raised fist had started and threw the first punch. Unfortunately, he had underestimated the other man’s reflexes – instead of connecting with a temple, his punch was parried, and next he knew Leonard was the one who had to duck an attack. He attempted a second hit, but when his opponent’s arm went up to parry again, Leonard grabbed it lightning fast and twisted. The man hissed out in pain, bending with the motion. Suddenly, Leonard felt all the air being pushed from his lungs as a knee hit his stomach. He sucked in air and fought down the sudden nausea. He let go of his opponent, who stumbled a few feet backwards. Leonard threw the phone at him and hit him square in the face.

Bad plan. Because next Leonard knew, the man was literally on fire. And, of course, this was the exact moment his brain decided to finally remember why the man seemed so familiar. Not that it still mattered much – the fire was a bit of a dead giveaway.

The man raised one flaming fist, either to throw a fireball or just punch him straight in the face with the force of the sun, but Leonard did not wait to find out. There was a time to stand up and throw down – going up against Firestorm was not fucking it. He threw his hands up and took a step back.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said and backed even further away; in the cell behind him Caitlin was cackling with glee. “Let’s reconsider if barbecuing my face is really what you want to do.”

Firestorm paused, surprised by his surrender, but fist still raised. He seemed to listen to something that Leonard could not hear, and then shook his head as if to get a bothering insect to leave him alone.

Leonard watched curiously, tilting his head. “You’re the original Burning Man, right? Ronnie Raymond?”

That got him a reaction, a flicker of _How do you know?_ , but it was not quite enough yet to definitely keep Ronnie from turning him into Sunday roast. Leonard took another slow step back to get away from the heat. He was not going to make a run for it; he was unarmed and there was no way he stood a chance against fully powered Firestorm in a fight. Caitlin in her glass room on the other hand was pressing her body as close against the glass as possible, and if things were not crazy enough already, there were ice crystals forming around her outstretched palms.

Leonard knew his best option was to just keep talking, wait for a really good opening or just convince Ronnie not to harm him. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” Maybe not the best thing to ask when you were being held at gunpoint (or the superpower equivalent of it), but the most obvious one, and the question he really wanted an answer to. _Are you dead? Am I dead? Are we all dead?_

Ronnie shook his head in bewilderment. "You - you're not--"

His eyes glazed over as if he had again been interrupted by a voice only he could hear. It was an expression Leonard had come to know quite well over the past four months. He tilted his head. "Professor Stein?"

"How do you-?" Ronnie violently shook his head, again interrupted by his second half. "Shut up!" he shouted and hit the side of his head with the palm of his flaming hand. Leonard watched, curious. "I know, I - _no_ , we're not - how --"

Just as Leonard deemed it safe to lower his hands Ronnie shouted, “Enough!” The flames on his body flared up and Leonard found himself backing against the cold glass. Movement at the corner of his eyes told him Caitlin was directly behind him, but he did not dare turn to look at her.

“Listen, buddy, I’ve got no idea who you are or what you’re doing here, but if you are who I think you are there’s no way I’m letting you go!” Ronnie said.

“You gonna kill me?” Leonard asked as calmly as the situation allowed. He might just make it to the door if he got in a good hit.

Ronnie’s eyes glazed over briefly as he considered his answer. The moment lasted longer than expected and gave Leonard the sick feeling that _Stein_ was arguing in favor of his demise. He was still too cornered to make a run for it.

But Ronnie shook his head. “No, I’m not gonna kill you. Come!” he ordered and ushered Leonard forward with his flaming hand. Leonard followed carefully to the other side of the room, where an empty glass room identical to Caitlin’s was.

“The platinum hair dye complimentary with the lockup?” he asked over his shoulder. “Might be a bit wasted on me.”

“Shut up and get in!”

Leonard inconspicuously glanced at the door’s locks before he stepped through it. Nothing too difficult. If he waited for Ronnie to leave the room he could get out in no time.

“What now?” he asked after Ronnie had locked him in.

“Now,” Ronnie said, flames subsiding as he fished a cellphone from one of the desks’ drawers, “I’m gonna get someone who understands more about this breacher stuff than I do.”

After a couple rings, somebody picked up. "Hey, Henry? There's - what? No, she's fine. No, it's - listen, you better come here. There's something you need to see."

***

Unfortunately, Ronnie did not leave the room once between making the call and the arrival of the man called Henry. Leonard had not known whom to expect - the only Henry he could think of was Henry Allen (and wouldn’t that have been a surprise?). Definitely not the rather spooked looking black man he had never seen before in his life.

The man - Henry - stared at him wide eyed for a long time. Leonard returned his gaze patiently. Finally, he turned to Ronnie. “He looks exactly like-”

“Yeah, I know,” Ronnie said with an impatient shrug. “But he’s not.”

“What is he doing in there?” Henry wanted to know, his voice aggravated.

“Chilling,” Leonard replied with a smirk.

Ronnie shot him a glance before turning to Henry. “If he is who I think he is, he’s a very dangerous man.”

Henry gasped. “You think he’s from-”

“My earth, yeah,” Ronnie finished for him again. “He’s a criminal over there, and I don’t want him to cause any trouble.”

Henry looked even more surprised, if that was possible. “A cri-” He found himself unable to finish the word. “What do you want me to do with him?” he asked instead.

Ronnie gave him an irritated look that reminded Leonard very much of Stein. “Well, check if I’m right! Find out where he’s from!”

“Have you tried _asking_ him where he came from?” Henry asked with one raised brow.

“I...” Ronnie shifted, suddenly nervous, his eyes now very interested in his loafers. “Got distracted,” he mumbled.

Henry sighed and took a step closer to the glass separating him from Leonard, who had been watching their back-and-forth curiously from where he was lounging against the unoccupied hospital bed. “I take it your name is Leo Snart?” Henry asked with a friendly smile.

“Leonard,” Leonard corrected him. “What’s with that ‘my earth’ stuff? Where are we?”

“Central City. Missouri. United States of America. Earth,” Henry listed off. “But I suspect none of it is like the one you’re used to, right?”

Leonard huffed. “You could say that.”

Henry nodded, finding their suspicion (whatever it was) further confirmed. “I promise, I will explain everything to you, but I’d much rather do that without all this glass between us. Before we can let you out, I’d like to find out if you are the Leonard Snart Ronnie here knows. Can you please name something that is different for you? Like, what is your S.T.A.R. Labs like? Is it in the same place? Does it even have the same name?”

“Yes and yes,” Leonard confirmed. Innocent enough questions. No harm in answering them. And if he gave up more, he would hopefully find out where he was and how to get back to where he should be. “Except ours was closed after the particle accelerator exploded in December 2013. Never reopened.”

Henry nodded again, this time more excited. He threw a glance to Ronnie. “Is that-?”

“Yeah.” Ronnie pressed his lips together and kept his eyes on Leonard. “That’s correct.”

“Hm, one more to be sure…” Henry said and tapped his chin with his finger. “Who is the mayor of Central City where you’re from?”

Leonard shrugged. “Dunno. Didn’t vote for them.”

“Huh,” Henry made, obviously trying to come up with a different question.

“That’s no use,” Ronnie said, his eyes and voice hard and almost fuming. “Where were you the night of May 12 one year ago? What were you doing?”

“Slow down there, hothead, this is starting to sound an awful lot like a police interrogation,” Leonard said. “Do I need to call my lawyer?”

Ronnie took an angry step forward and burst into flames. “Answer the question!”

“Hold it, Ronnie!” Henry stepped in between Ronnie and the glass, arms raised, but he was careful to stay well away from the flames. Ronnie stopped, flames subsiding again, until they were nothing more but a flicker around his eyes. Henry turned back to Leonard. “Please. It would be a great help to us if you could answer the question, so we can confirm where you’re from.”

Leonard smirked. “Your ‘Good Cop, Bad Cop’-routine easily makes my top ten, so fine: the night of May 12, 2015, I was helping the Flash move a couple of metahumans he’d had locked up in his private pipeline prison.”

“And?” Ronnie pressed out.

Leonard sighed. “And, since that counts as unlawful imprisonment, I set them free before they reached their destination.”

“You double-crossed him!” Ronnie shouted. “The Flash trusted you and you betrayed him!”

“I spared his life,” Leonard pointed out. “And he was right as rain last time I saw him, aka, the time I warned him about a plot to kill him that I refused to participate in.”

Ronnie tried to come up with something to counter that point, but then just angrily shut his mouth. Henry’s eyes were wide. “You really are a criminal,” he breathed.

Leonard pursed his lips. “Among other things. But I promise I’ll be a good boy if you let me out.”

Ronnie gave a short humorless laugh. “Your word isn’t worth crap!”

“True,” Leonard said. “But try look at it from a logical perspective: I don’t have anything to gain from hurting you just to get out of here, because I’ve been out there, and I have no idea where the hell I am or how I get back to where I should be. I swear, I will not start any trouble, unless I have to.”

Henry considered his point for exactly six seconds. Then he shrugged and went to the keyboard by the door before Ronnie could argue. “Fine by me.” The door slid open and Leonard stepped out of the room slowly. He smirked at Ronnie, who shot him back a glare but said nothing.

“So,” he said, “what the hell is going on?”

Once the glass was out of the way, Henry Hewitt turned out to be a genuinely kind and friendly scientist, and the only person at S.T.A.R. Labs who knew about the occupants of the restricted laboratory. He also had nothing better to do on a Friday night, and, after the initial shock and confusion had passed, was happy to explain the multiverse theory to Leonard with Ronnie's begrudging help. Leonard asked for clarification a couple times and filled in what he knew about the singularity incident and its aftermath. At this Ronnie was visibly relieved because, he said, he had not been entirely sure his friends - Team Flash - had survived the incident.

Ronnie went on to explain how, after separating from Stein inside the singularity and getting sucked into it as it was closing, he had found himself completely powerless on the edge of the river outside a S.T.A.R. Labs that was vastly different from the one he knew. He had then spent the next couple months surviving on the streets, a skill he had apparently learned from his Martin Stein. Shortly before Christmas he had been discovered and taken captive by a friend of Henry's, who had brought him back to S.T.A.R. Labs for questioning (Henry and Ronnie exchanged an ominous glance at the mention of this friend, but did not go into details, and Leonard was frankly too overwhelmed to ask).

"Everything we know about the two worlds we know from her," Ronnie explained instead with a nod at Caitlin, who had since gotten bored of listening to them and was now reading what looked like a fashion magazine. Henry went on to clarify that this world's Caitlin Snow and Ronnie Raymond were dangerous wanted criminals, therefore not very trustworthy, and that that Ronnie - Deathstorm - had been killed a few months ago. And when that had happened, it had had an interesting and completely unexpected effect, for instead of dying with his bonding partner, the consciousness of Martin Stein had survived and bonded with the next best thing on this side of the continent - Ronnie Raymond from Leonard's earth.

"Turns out the Firestorm matrix was too stubborn to die," Ronnie said, calmer now, but the hint of a flame flickering in his eye. "It... adapted. But being Deathstorm for so long did things to Stein - he's... he's got issues. And he's different from the one in our world. But he's a good man, and he's alive."

Leonard nodded thoughtfully from where he had sat down on the edge of the desk. "Our Stein also found a second half to survive. Nice kid. He's not over you though."

Ronnie gave a small, tense smile, glad his first bonding partner was alive too. Suddenly he frowned.

"How do you know so much about me and Stein anyway?" he asked, realizing that, while Leonard had been inquisitive about the multiverse theory, he had at most just nodded when they had talked about Firestorm.

"The professor and I were on the same team," Leonard simply said.

Ronnie was startled. "Wait - Stein didn’t go rogue after I was gone, did he?!"

Leonard smirked at the image of Stein as a criminal. Then again, the professor had drugged and kidnapped Jax, and had successfully threatened the terrorists in Finland... "Not exactly," he said instead.

"So, are - are you on our side now?" Ronnie asked, even more baffled. "Are you working with the Flash? Why didn’t you just say so? Is that how you got here? Are you a hero now?"

At the last question Leonard grimaced and softly rubbed the stinging blister on his left palm. The word still sounded weird when applied to him, even though he knew it was true - Mick had said so. He considered his next words carefully. "We didn't work with the Flash. But yes, the team is part of that long story on how I got here." Ronnie and Henry looked at him expectantly. Leonard crossed his arms. There was no really good way to go about this. "What's your opinion on time travel?"

At first, they were of course skeptical, but the more Leonard told them about Rip Hunter and Vandal Savage, Gideon and the Time Masters, the Waverider and the team, the more they were drawn in. He left out a lot for now; nobody needed to know that Rip forgot three of them in the late 50s for two years, or that they had almost helped the Soviets win the Cold War. He left out the part about Mick being Chronos. There was a lot of talk about Kendra's powers and her link to Savage, about the general state and look of time as an actual thing, and about the Oculus and its destruction, which, thanks to Gideon, Leonard knew the most about. He remained completely matter of fact when he told them about how someone had had to hold the thing down and that he had done it, but he would not look them in the eye. Ronnie's posture shifted after hearing that, though.

Leonard never mentioned the time loop, deeming it an unnecessarily confusing detail. Instead, he ended his account simply with, "I had a plan, though - I was going to send myself back to January 2016, right when we left. But," he shrugged, "something went wrong and I ended up here instead."

At least he thought that was going to be the end of it. But of course Henry was curious exactly how he had planned to travel through time without a time ship, which forced Leonard to reveal the miniature time drive he still wore around his neck. Upon removing it, the part of his shirt that had directly covered the device crumbled to crispy burned flakes. Apparently, the only thing holding the fabric together for the past hours had been good will. Leonard also became painfully aware that the skin underneath the device was reddened and even blistering in a few spots. When Henry learned the exact circumstances of the time travel, he insisted on giving him a complete physical examination, which Leonard tried to protest, albeit weakly and only because he had an image to protect. As expected, Henry stared at his excessive number of scars when he reluctantly took off his shirt, but Leonard glared right back, daring him to say something. He didn't, and the next few hours were a haze of scans and tests that Leonard mainly complied with because they promised him real food afterwards.

In the end, he was not exactly sure what they had tested, but Henry seemed satisfied and announced confidently that he and Ronnie were indeed from the same earth. Further preliminary results showed that Leonard was in perfect health, save for the slight first degree burns on his face and the second degree burns on his chest and left palm. His radiation levels appeared slightly elevated, but still in the normal range.

Afterwards, Ronnie showed him to the decontamination showers so he could wash up. They gave him ointment that smelled like something out of Mick’s toolbox for the injuries, and a black S.T.A.R. Labs hoodie to replace his ruined shirt; the hood reminded Leonard of his parka, and, silly as it was, he felt calmer for it. The "real food" turned out to be cold leftover cheese pizza and a Snickers bar from the snack machine near the gift shop, but at this point he was too worn out to actually complain. Ronnie was channeling a more positive side of Professor Stein and geeking out over time travel science with Henry, while Leonard sat on the floor near meta-Caitlin's cell and munched on his pizza. All he wanted to do was sleep and wake up in a world that felt right. Hell, he would have taken prison, as long as it was in his world and Mick was there to help break him out. His right thumb wandered to his pinky finger automatically, but he had slipped the ring into the pocket of Mick's jacket before they had left the ship.

Mick, who thought he was dead. Mick, who was grieving him at this very moment. Mick, who missed him enough to go back to 2013 to tell him he was his hero.

Leonard let the pizza sink, unable to swallow past the lump in his chest. He was alive, but at what price? Much as he knew, Rip was not aware of any parallel universes. If Gideon had known something like this could happen, he was sure she would have warned him. Ronnie had been in this world for almost a year, but so far, he had been unable to get back or even let the people in their world know he was alive. Leonard clenched his teeth. This was not what he had wanted.

"Once you two are done flying your geek flag," he spoke up, drawing Ronnie's and Henry's attention to him, "maybe you can tell me how I can get back to where I belong."

The other two exchanged careful looks and that was already the answer Leonard had hoped not to get. He wanted to know how far they were to a solution, but those looks told him they were not much further than he.

"Well..." Henry started, shooting a quick glance over to Caitlin for help, but she was fast asleep and snoring. "There are breaches between our worlds, as a result of the singularity. So far though, we haven't been able to find out where exactly they are. Dr. Wells could probably help us with that, but he and his daughter have been missing since February."

"Also," Ronnie added, "Cait says that you need a speedster to travel between worlds."

"And this world's Flash ain't willing to help?" Leonard figured with a vaguely questioning wave of his hand.

Ronnie shook his head, a tense expression on his face. "No. He's missing too."

Leonard pressed his lips together in resignation because what was he even expecting at this point? "So we're stuck here." It was not a question as much as a statement. Ronnie shrugged helplessly.

"We're working on it," Henry assured him.

"Work faster!" Leonard snapped, fingers clenching into fists. "My friends think I'm dead!"

Ronnie gave him a look of utter disbelief at his inconsideration and opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by an alarm going off. Henry blinked, confused, then his eyes found the watch on his wrist and he swore. Leonard did not bother checking his own watch (it had not shown the correct time since he had first boarded the Waverider, and currently it was also in need of repair; like with his goggles, the glass was a web of cracks and tiny loose shards), but he noticed the darkness outside the windows had disappeared in favor of light blue skies and early morning sunshine. They had spent the entire night with tests and talking.

Ronnie's eyes got an alarmed look. He sped to the nearest computer monitor, almost falling over Leonard's legs in the process, and opened up what looked like the feed from the security cameras; it was hard to see anything from Leonard's position on the floor, but so far, he could not be bothered to get up.

"Is it-?" Henry asked concerned.

"Damnit!" Ronnie swore after a few clicks. "Yes, it's them." He shot a quick look at Leonard, who was now starting to feel alarmed. "He can't be here."

"What do you want me to do?" Henry threw his hands in the air. "Lock him in the broom closet? Throw a blanket over him?!"

"What's going on?" Leonard asked, getting up slowly and never letting either of them out of his sight. They ignored him.

"Would it be so bad if he saw him?" Henry argued. "I mean, he knows about the two worlds already!"

"He doesn't know everything!" Ronnie replied and pointed agitatedly at Leonard. "He's a criminal!"

"That's more of a part-time thing at the moment," Leonard interjected. "Now tell me what the hell is going on!"

They turned to him, but when obviously neither knew how to begin, they hesitated just a little too long and were interrupted by the ping of the elevator in the hallway outside. Henry darted out of the room and greeted whoever was there in a hushed voice. Meanwhile, Ronnie tried to grab Leonard's arm in an attempt to drag him to some other hidden location, but Leonard jerked away and hissed "Don't touch me!" Ronnie was about to argue with him when Leonard suddenly heard the voices coming closer and closer to the lab. He held up his hand as a sign for Ronnie to be quiet, and although Ronnie still wanted to say something he quickly closed his mouth and let his shoulders sink with resignation, waiting for what was coming to just run its course. With a sharp jolt of lightning in his chest Leonard recognized first one, and then the second voice, and he could not say which one shocked him more. The skin at the back of his neck tingled as his mind tried in vain to process what was happening and what he was hearing. He completely missed what they were saying, and stared tensely at the doorway, until Henry stepped in hesitantly, followed by his two new guests. "...there have been some... new developments..." he explained to them apologetically, but they had stopped dead in their tracks as soon as they spotted Leonard. Who was just as frozen in place as they were. Who was staring, completely dumbfounded, at a woman who looked exactly like his sister, and a man who looked exactly like himself.

After a few moments of stunned silence, the woman spoke up: "What's going on?"

Ronnie sighed. "Mayor Snart, Lisa - meet Leonard Snart from my earth!"

_Mayor?!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, I am very sorry for taking so long to edit, but, ah, stuff, y'know?  
> Anyway, so many thanks to harleygirl2648, aka somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds on tumblr, AgentMaryMargaretSkitz, and my dear miragedominator for proofreading and encouraging me and being generally awesome friends <3  
> And equally many thanks go to the wonderful people from the upcoming LoT-rewrite, who gave me the confidence to even share this with my friends first and ask them for input, and who reminded me why I love Legends of Tomorrow so much!  
> Also, thank you so much to all the people who commented on Chapter 1! I am awful at responding, but I try, and please know that your comments make me so very happy :)  
> Stay tuned for Chapter 3! I'm not making any promises, but hopefully it shouldn't take me half a year to edit again XD


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